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Arthur's Treasure Hunt
Arthur is in the kitchen, and there's strips of bacon and creamy goo all over his head, and on the walls. Arthur's running a blender without the lid on it, and bacon and goo are flying everywhere. 2019 February 13 1999 VHS # 2019 February 13 # The Two Who Cried Ouch # 2018 November 22 # Phony Fern # Camp Out Arthur thinks about how lots of great minds must have been slowed down by their parents getting in their way. Back to reality. Arthur's Dad comes into the kitchen, to find it covered in goo and uncooked bacon. He wants to know what Arthur's doing with his good equipment. Arthur says that he was just trying to invent the "Bacon flavored shake". Dad's not buying it... See what Arthur means about parents getting in the way of great discoveries? * * * Arthur's Treasure Hunt * * * Brain, Binky, Francine, Arthur, and Muffy are all by the big stone bridge, skipping stones in the river. This is Brain's hobby, and his friends are all having a go as well. Brain's giving them advice to help them get good at it. Francine does a good skim. Binky says he can beat that. He hurls a giant boulder into the water, and it soaks everyone with its splash. Binky: Whoops. Brain suggests that Binky try a smaller rock next time with a more rounded shape. Buster comes running up to the group from out of the trees. He has a rock in his hand. He stops just by Binky, puffing and panting after running all the way there. Binky thinks Buster wants him to try throwing the rock, and is just about to hurl it into the water when Buster frantically grabs it back off of him. It's a very special rock -- it's an old arrowhead. Buster found it buried in his Mom's garden. Everyone is impressed. Muffy wonders who buried it. Brain notes that the prehistoric arrowhead that was found in Buster's yard is typical of those found in the region. ...Which means there might be arrowheads and things like that in everyone's yards! Maybe even buried treasure... Wow! That's it. Everyone's going to go home, dig up treasure, and then they'll compare what they've found. Arthur imagines digging in his yard, and finding an ancient statue. When he excavates further, it turns out that the statue was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak -- We pull away to a wide overhead shot to show the entire neighbourhood dug up, since underneath it is a Roman collesium and an entire Roman city. (situated in the northeastern United States no less) ...And Arthur discovered it all...* * * Arthur asks Mom if he can go dig up the garden to find ancient Romans. Mom says she doesn't know about ancient Romans... Mom: It's the modern ones I don't want to see...Mom's gotta go run some errands, and she gives Arthur permission to dig, but only behind the garage, where it won't be noticable. She restricts him from digging anywhere else. * * * Arthur starts to dig behind the garage. D.W. ambles over with her Princess Sneeze and Wet doll. She wonders why Arthur's digging. She figures he's probably burying his report card. Arthur says that that's not why he's digging. He's looking for treasure. D.W.: Like pennies?No... real treasure. But Arthur does't have much luck. He does find some stuff though. There's an old piece of root in the hole. D.W. grabs this and shakes it at Arthur. Arthur thinks it's a snake, and is startled by it. D.W. laughs -- according to her, even the Tibble Twins don't fall for that old trick. Arthur grumbles. Arthur digs up an old "Digestive Buscuits" tin. Neither Arthur or D.W. have any idea as to what "Digestive Buscuits" could be. The box is empty though -- Arthur gives it to D.W., and she starts filling it with dirt. The next thing Arthur finds is a bone. Is it a dinosaur bone? No. It's just Pal's. Pal retrieves this and takes it away. Arthur's getting annoyed with the lack of fabulous treasure. He imagines how his friends must be getting on. A lot better than he is, he figures. *Binky has a giant wooden wheel set up in his garden, with spokes around the circumference. Binky walks around in a circle, like a drafthorse, turning the wheel and winding a rope. The rope pulls out a giant Egyptian statue from out of the ground. *Muffy sits on a lounger by the pool in her yard. From out of a mine tunnel walk some of her butlers, wearing miners helmets. Each of them has large diamonds that they have recovered from the mine in Muffy's yard. Muffy inspects the diamonds, each about as big as a grapefruit. She says they're "too small", and tosses them in a dump pile. The pile is a huge mound of substandard diamonds -- substandard to Muffy anyway -- some are massive. *Brain, being the scientific fellow, is using a metal detector in his garden. It beeps, and Brain digs down to find the treasure. He goes deep into the ground, and excavates a... metal detector! Brain tosses it into his dump pile -- a giant pile of nothing but old metal detectors... * * * Arthur figures that the back of the garage is a rotten place to dig. But D.W. reminds him of his promise to Mom -- he can't dig anywhere else. Arthur goes into the back garden, and notices Pal digging. Pal is reburying the bone that Arthur dug up. Pal's hole is quite deep, and as Arthur notes, is kind of messy. Arthur figures it would be alright if he dug in Pal's hole. D.W. doesn't think so. Arthur reasons with her. He won't be digging a hole, he'll just be "fixing" Pal's messy hole. Arthur imagines what he'll find. Arthur digs down, to find an ancient Mayan-type stone door in the ground. Arthur opens this to find a spiral stairway leading deep into the Earth. Arthur scrambles down the stairs.It's dark down below, so Arthur grabs a lit torch from a holder on the wall and descends down the stairs. Soon he's in a deep cavern with stairways and tunnels leading off in all directions. Arthur choses one, and follows it. It stops at a stone doorway. Arthur wonders what could be on the other side. Maybe it's a trap. Only one way to find out... Arthur gingerly opens the heavy door. Light streams out, like something out of "Indiana Jones & The Raiders of The Lost Ark"... What's inside? Buster's in his room, and he looks up, surprised. What's Arthur doing in Buster's closet? Arthur's just as surprised! D.W. wonders if that might be possible. Arthur says sure. Arthur: There's probably old tunnels that go everywhere.Arthur imagines how these tunnels could be helpful to the family. It's evening, and the Reads are having a family barbeque in the yard. Grandpa Dave's there. Everything is set when Dad notices that they've forgotten to buy some charcoal. Without charcoal, the barbeque is ruined! Since the stores are all closed for the night, they'll have to cancel it.Arthur says no, they won't! Arthur goes down the secret tunnel. Next we're in the supermarket. One of the tiles in the floor pops out. Arthur pops his head up, and scrambles into the darkened store, with one of those ancient torches in his hand. Arthur finds the charcoal section, and grabs a bag. He runs over to the checkout. He figures out how much the charcoal costs, even including the tax, and drops the money onto the counter. Then he goes back into the tunnel, and replaces the tile. Back at the Reads, the barbeque is a great success. The hotdogs are the best ever, thanks to Arthur's charcoal and his secret passages.' Mom: It's a good thing you didn't listen to me! Back to reality. D.W. repeats Mom's line about being glad Arthur didn't do as he was told. She highly doubts Mom will say that! Arthur says fine, he won't dig. But that'll make D.W. the "barbeque wrecker" then. D.W. gives in. Arthur starts to dig. And dig he does. He digs all over the place. *He pulls out flowers. *He removes heavy stones from the rockery. *He tears up all the grass. The backyard is a mess. And so is the front yard, Arthur having dug it up too in the hunt for treasure. Arthur: We must have the most boring backyard in the history of backyards! At that moment, Arthur's friends arrive. They'd gotten restless waiting for him back at the river and wondered what was delaying him. They didn't have much luck in their yards, since they didn't dig up the entire place the way Arthur did. They show Arthur and D.W. what they found. *Brain found some old pennies. They're over 30 years old. The fact they had coins back then surprises a few. *Binky shows what he found. He found a root that looked like an iguana. So he named it. He pulls out the root, and shows it to everyone. Its name is "Enguan". Binky says he names all of his roots. *Muffy has a necklace around her neck. Wow. Muffy found that? Muffy admits that no, she bought it. But jewels and things do come from the ground originally... Arthur says that he didn't have much luck. He found a root too, but he didn't name it. All he found was the digestive buscuit tin. He shows it to the others. Everyone is extremely impressed by the tin, it being the best thing anyone actually found. They think it's cool. Brain handles it. Brain estimates that the tin is probably over 20 years old! Muffy: That's as old as my Mom! Muffy's shocked. That makes the tin ancient! Arthur was really lucky to have been able to dig up his garden. That's when Arthur realizes that he probably shouldn't have dug it all up, especially since he wasn't supposed to. Arthur's gang all decide to pitch in and help. They all work hard, repostioning rocks, and replanting sod and flowers, and finish just as Arthur's Mom pulls into the driveway. All of Arthur's friends are filthy and dirty. Plus, the garden looks terrible. For all of their effort, it's pretty obvious that it was dug up, and then hurridly thrown back together. Arthur's Mom gets out the car, and wonders what happened. All of Arthur's friends try to cover up for Arthur by making excuses for him. Giant earthworms are cited as one possible explanation. Arthur confesses. He dug up the garden, and he's sorry. Mom says she's very disappointed. * * * At school, the topic turns to treasure again. Arthur shows something he found in the garage. A harmonica. Arthur claims that "treasure is where you find it"... Brain comments that in other words, Arthur's grounded, and is having to clean out the garage. That's right, says Arthur. Brain asks Arthur if he'd like to go skip stones at the river next week with the gang, once he's free to go out again. Arthur grins, and says that they'd better make it the week after next... End. Next time Arthur, try putting the lid on the blender... Also, I'd recommend cooking the bacon, unless Arthur wants a wormy shake and/or a stomach upset shake... :) It doesn't look cooked to me. Arthur and D.W. don't know what digestive biscuits are? Mom's quip about Romans is odd. I don't get it. :/ All in all, not a bad episode -- more like a season one or two episode in its straightforwardness. No complicated plot twists. Next time Arthur, get a big JCB or a CAT excavator, or even a little Bobcat digger. You'll find them a lot more effective at digging than the ol' shovel. That garden will be dug up in no time. :) This is another episode where teamwork doesn't make everything turn out right -- Arthur still gets in trouble at the end -- and pretty severely. Two weeks grounding for wrecking the garden. (Arthur only gets grounded with no TV for punching his sister in Arthur's Big Hit...) :) Want another case of the kids working hard only to come up short? Try the sister episode to this one -- #30902 - "The Return of the King"... there are others including #40801 - "1001 Dads". "Enguan", the name of Binky's root/iguana is similar to the name of the take-out Chinese restaurant that Sue Ellen's family had take-out food in #22002 - "Sue Ellen's Little Sister". There's a clue in #41002 - "That's A Baby Show" that would suggest that it's the name of one of the friends of the Arthur staff. More on this later. The hidden tunnels that go everywhere is neat -- reminded me of Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr Fox". Category:Episodes Category:Warner, Home Video, 1999, VHS